My Personal Style Resolutions #8: Things I Fell In Love With Today

LolaDee is a crafty blogger and broadcasting student, with a love of vintage, photographs, personal style and pretty things who blogs about the things she falls in love with every day.

As I write this I'm drowning in a sea of shoes, dresses and a ridiculous amount of tights, in an attempt to de-clutter my wardrobe in time for the new year. I'm one of those freaks who lives by making lists, so this time of year is definitely my comfort-zone. Here are my personal style resolutions (these come sub-categorised under 'NY Resolutions: The Beautify-Me Part' in my resolutions list - because yes, my lists do have sub-categories... I did mention I'm a freak).

1. Dust off the sewing machine...
...that I bought this year with high hopes and subsequently never used, find some cute fabric and make, make, make! I've always wanted to make my own clothes and the new year seems like the perfect excuse. With my slightly (or, very) empty pockets and more time on my hands to create my own designs, I will be having fun drawing inspiration from high-street trends fused with vintage classics. Or at least that's the plan... I'm sure I will blog about the successes, but more often than that (probably) the many disasters.

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2. Charity shops
Once again, taking inspiration from my weightless pockets, I will be regularly venturing into Cork's fine selection of charity shops, to find homeless - lufflies at cheap prices and also so I can stand on the moral high-ground for a few minutes in the knowledge that my well-spent money will in fact make a difference to someone somewhere.

3. Vintage
When I'm not making my own clothes or scoring bargains in charity shops, I hope to find some timeless treasures in some of Cork's vintage shops or online. I see good vintage as a worthy investment because if its lasted this long already, it will probably serve me well also. That and the fact that its unique and more often than not, completely adorable.

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4. Wardrobe Remix
Finally, I want to make better and more versatile use of the clothes that I have. Lets face it, everyone's broke, so now the real fun is to be had in mixing and matching outfits based on what we already have and how we can accessorise to make them work for the season that's in it. If Sheena Matheiken of the Uniform Project can wear one dress every day for a year and still look amazing, then I think I can manage to make better use of my own wardrobe. Something tells me that this might call for a series of 'Wardrobe Remix' posts on the blog, which sounds like a fun challenge to me!


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Thanks to Sarah for inviting me to post my personal style resolutions Have a wonderful 2011. I hope to see you stop by my blog in the new year.

LolaDee xoxo



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Style Icon - Wallis Simpson

Today started well.  I found out that I was a nominee for Ireland's Top Fashion Blogger.  This is a total surprise, because I didn't solicit a nomination, but now that I've got one, I'm going to cling onto it until my fingernails fall off and pimp myself out for votes like an underage Jodie Foster.  Can you tell that I was the kid who never won any prizes on sports day?

I don't for a second think that I'll come out on top with so many excellent blogs nominated, but if you like this blog and don't want me to be Sad Sack Sarah at the bottom of the pile (fingers crossed!) please do vote for me by clicking here.  Go to my pic (I'm number 41), then press vote.  Easy as pie!

Then I popped down to The Fair Alternative to find a super-cute prize for my QUESTION! post and bumped in the lovely Lorna of Loladee (check out her etsy here) who gifted me an amazingly cute zipper brooch that I want to keep ALL TO MYSELF.



The winner, with an exhaustive list of blogs is Anne-Marie.  Congrats!  I'll tweet you with details. 

Now onto the blog post at hand...
My mother very thoughtfully bought me a copy of Any Human Heart by William Boyd a few days ago. I'm a bit of a pedanto at times, so I decided to watch the entire Channel 4 series in one go before reading the book. Sometimes I read the book before watching the TV series/film, but my reasoning was that it wasn't so much the story that I was looking forward to as much as Boyd's writing itself.  I'm so glad that I watched it now, because the series is so immaculate and well made and the characters so finely tuned and nuanced that I can't wait to read the book just so I can replay every episode in my head, complete with the fleshed-out details that the book provides. 

Gillian Anderson and Tom Hollander as Wallis Simpson and Prince Edward

One character who definitely didn't get enough screentime was Wallis Simpson, played by Gillian Anderson.  She plays Wallis as an abrasive, self entitled social climber with a dress sense as sharp as her cheekbones and one liners.  Paris Hilton - start taking notes.

Historical accounts of the real Simpson's personality run the gamut of bad to just plain evil.  She was characterised as a control freak with OCD (definitely) gold-digger (possible), a Nazi sympathiser (probable) and a pseudo-prostitute trained in the sexual arts in a brothel in China (eh, I'll get back to you on that one).  I remember reading that people thought that she was a hermaphrodite (or intersex, if I'm being very PC) in a bid to explain her childlessness.  Not very likely.

Whatever you want to say about her, the woman had charisma.  People are still boggled by her life, her personality and her political motivations.  I'm boggled by her wardrobe.  Wallis was exceptionally long and lean.  Her wedding dress was copied into the hundreds of thousands and she was (and still is) lauded for her personal style and attention to detail.

In an article for The Telegraph, the author Rose Tremain says:

"She, who is said to have coined the statement that "You can't be too rich or too thin", was stigmatised as being too ambitious, too ruthless, too greedy, too mannish, too sexual, too cruel, too divorced, too pro-German and too American. In the brilliant Irving Penn photo-portrait of her, which hangs in my study, she is backed into what appears to be a narrow cell, from which the only escape is towards the camera, into the glare of the flash and the click of the shutter."

Portrait by Irving Penn



Portrait by Cecil Beaton

Portrait by Cecil Beaton

What Tremain sees in the Penn portrait is a look of abject fear.  I, and many others, might disagree.  That's the allure of Wallis Simpson, who didn't just dress well, but was totally unknowable, and always will be.